Theoretical Framework of the Causes of Poverty - Research Paper Example

The Causes and Inheritance of Poverty-Research Proposal Theoretical Framework of the Causes of Poverty Recent studieson poverty acknowledge the existence of different theories of poverty (Jefferson 105). There are differences between theories that relate the cause of poverty to individual deficiencies, and those that relate to the social phenomena in the society. For this case, the theories that relate to individual deficiencies are conservative approaches while those that relate to the social context of the community are progressive or liberal. As such, there is an implication that poverty could be either a structure or an incident (Jefferson 105). The structural poverty lines are those that restrict the economic development of individuals while the incident poverty lines are those that happen accidently of incidentally in life. However, none of the proposed theories attributes the cause of poverty to personal characteristics. Poverty Caused By Individual Deficiencies This first theory of the cause of poverty is a broad and multifaceted approach that explains that a person is the cause of their miserable situation. Traditionally, politically conservative theoreticians blame poor people for causing their predicaments. Such theorists argue that poor the poor could have avoided their state had they made better choices and worked hard in life (Bradshaw 9). In other cases, individual theories of poverty-related poverty to the missing of some genetic qualities such as intelligence, which individuals cannot reverse. The belief by many people that poverty refers to an individual’s making is an old practice. For instance, religious doctrines allude the possession of wealth to blessings by God and the lack of it as a curse from the same God. The 19th century saw a revolution in the idea that intelligence is genetic and that poverty in the community belonged to the less intelligent. For this case, the religious stereotyping alludes the poor to possessing the mark of Cain, which means they must always suffer. There is irony in the neo-classical economists’ support for individual theories of poverty. The irony is the fact that everyone tries to escape being poor through the creation of opportunities that would give them the power to do so. The economic theory holds individuals who make short-term choices that have low payoffs responsible for their own decisions. The idea that some people forego education because of particular job when they could earn better in the future is a valid example (Bradshaw 15). The economic theory also considers that the poor have little or no access to incentives that would improve their conditions. In such a scenario, the economist argues that poverty does not result from doing anything, but from doing too much counteractive action for riches. Poverty Resulting From Systems of Cultural Belief, Which Support Sub-Cultures Of Poverty The second model that explains the causes of poverty is the culture of poverty. At times, some scholars link this theory to the individual poverty theory. The theory proposes and attributes the causes of poverty to the generation and transmission of socially generated but individually held sets of cultures, skills, and beliefs of generations. For this case, the theory does not lay blame on individuals because they find themselves victims of their dysfunctional culture or subculture (Davis 10). Culture is a reflection of the life of a given set of people, which distinguishes this theory from the individual model. Technically, the culture of poverty relates to subcultures of poor individuals living in poor regions, ghettos or other social contexts that have the same ideology different from the rest of the community. The society as a whole bears the blame of transferring and teaching the subsequent generations about what they believe regarding poverty. Consequently, the community assures into its culture, the younger generation and causes a cyclic cycle of the condition. Poverty Resulting From Cumulative Cyclical Interdependencies The theory has its roots in the works of Myrdal who suggested that the societal factors interrelate and interlock into one self-sustaining unit, which keeps poverty at bay. Poverty starts setting in once there is deprivation of any one of the elements in the web (Bradshaw 21). The theory perceives individuals within their community and the available resources as being a system of interrelated factors. For example, lack of employment at the community level may result in an emigration, closure of retail stores, a drop in the collected taxes, and the deterioration of schools. The latter action may lead to poor training of workers and inability of firms within the area to utilize cutting-edge technology and finally, poverty sets in. Such a cycle may also happen at an individual level, which argues that poverty results from a disruption of the balance of factors in the cycle. Proposition: Class Inequalities in Education Is the Primary Cause of Poverty Literature Review Most of the arguments that link poverty to inequalities in education between races, gender, and social classes relate to sociological approaches to inequality. Biddle (23) argues that mentioning the influence of such aspects as assets and cash incomes or any other property with monetary value would make the approach relevant to the economic theory. As such, a concentration of the sociological approach is the influence that people who have the mentioned factors create the wealth creating avenues. Social classes evolved from the regulation and the usage of the means of production. As such, there was a grouping of the society into two classes with each having its supporting groups. On one side of the social life were the capitalists consisting of bankers, merchants, industrialists and other influential groups of people. On the other hand, there were workers who depended on their salaries and their dependents. In all societies, there are different social statuses and positions. The variations remain workable because of the existence of some rewards that motivate the society to want to continue having the same statuses. The rich are motivated to continue being more prosperous and acquire more wealth while the poor remain satisfied with their positions (Biddle 46). Consequently, the more affluent and the more influential members of the society have more command of the resources that the societies hold. Reconsidering the theories of poverty, the culture of poverty theory suggests that the children born of poor families will inherit the culture of poverty. In relation to the cumulative cyclical interdependencies theory, education is one of the pillars of eradicating poverty in the society. However, the poverty culture denies the poor a chance to gain access to educational facilities. The failure to achieve education by the poor causes them to miss opportunities that would otherwise give them the power to fight poverty. As the rich gain proper education and learn on ways of staying away from poverty, the poor learn to remain in their conditions and blame the society for the framing. The priming and framing effect of the society accuse the rich of depriving the poor of their rights to advance and develop themselves. The weak frame the rich as tyrants because the affluent can afford almost everything in life at their expense. The poor also give limited chances to their children to develop and grow out of poverty. For example, most cultures have biased approaches to gender and educational privileges. The most generalized approach by many cultures is to educate the males at the expense of the females. The current population figures in the world indicate that there are more females than there are males, which means that denying the female gender accesses to education causes poverty (Chant 50). Research Design The approach of the study will include both primary and secondary data. The source of primary data for the study will be surveying. The independent variable in the study will be the causes of poverty with constructs generated basing on two propositions. The first will be that inequalities in social class access to education causes poverty and the second is that differences in gender access to education causes poverty. The research will measure the two variables by use of survey questions that will require ordinal responses. The examples of these questions are in the appendix. The dependent variable will be a study of the college grade graduation and admission data again by use of research questions with ordinal responses. The reliability of the answers to the research questions will depend on repeated asking of the same questions to different correspondents and comparing the answers. The validity of the answers will depend on convergent validity, which will determine the relevance of each item of the research. The errors that result from the research process corrupt the validity of the answers gained. Therefore, there shall be a rewarding of the questions while the responses remain as a way of minimizing the error generated out of data collecting methods. The research findings of the report will depend on extracting information from the print media channels such as books, journals, periodicals, magazines and other sources. The secondary sources will provide a framework that will measure the reliability and validity of the data collected using the sampling method. The methods will also serve a standard of measuring the errors of the responses that the respondents will give. Works Cited Biddle, Bruce. Social Class, Poverty, and Education. New York: RoutledgeFalmer, 2001. Print. Bradshaw, Ted. "Theories of poverty and anti-poverty programs in community development." Community Development 38.1 (2007): 7-25. Chant, S. The International Handbook of Gender and Poverty. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub, 2010. Print. Davis, Philip and Miguel, Sanchez-Martinez. "A review of the economic theories of poverty." National Institute of Economic and Social Research (2014). Jefferson, Philip. "Theories of Poverty." The Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Poverty (2012): 105. Appendix This part of the paper outlines the questions that the research will use in the primary data collection process. One of the respondents shall be someone older than 35 years of South Korean origin. Such an individual will be resourceful enough because there are high prospects that he graduated from his highest level of education. 1. What is the purpose of your education a) For my own knowledge b) For my dream c) To be success in the Korean society d) For the future (don’t have dream, but preparing for the dream at future) e) Just going with the majorities (Korean people have high percentage of graduating University) f) .Others (opinion :) 2. Your family social class (in your opinion) a) Upper class b) Middle class c) Lower class d) Others (opinion :) 3. Your family income monthly (income of household and the respondents themselves if the respondent is working now) a) .Income of household ( ) b) Income of the respondent ( ) 4. Your social class (if the respondents have a job) a) Upper class b) Middle class c) Lower class d) .Others (opinion :) 5. Your highest level of education (with the name of school) a) .Middle school b) High school c) Undergraduate school (name of school :) d) Graduate school (name of school :) e) Others (opinion :) Read More